The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.
The Official Report search offers lots of different ways to find the information you’re looking for. The search is used as a professional tool by researchers and third-party organisations. It is also used by members of the public who may have less parliamentary awareness. This means it needs to provide the ability to run complex searches, and the ability to browse reports or perform a simple keyword search.
The web version of the Official Report has three different views:
Depending on the kind of search you want to do, one of these views will be the best option. The default view is to show the report for each meeting of Parliament or a committee. For a simple keyword search, the results will be shown by item of business.
When you choose to search by a particular MSP, the results returned will show each spoken contribution in Parliament or a committee, ordered by date with the most recent contributions first. This will usually return a lot of results, but you can refine your search by keyword, date and/or by meeting (committee or Chamber business).
We’ve chosen to display the entirety of each MSP’s contribution in the search results. This is intended to reduce the number of times that users need to click into an actual report to get the information that they’re looking for, but in some cases it can lead to very short contributions (“Yes.”) or very long ones (Ministerial statements, for example.) We’ll keep this under review and get feedback from users on whether this approach best meets their needs.
There are two types of keyword search:
If you select an MSP’s name from the dropdown menu, and add a phrase in quotation marks to the keyword field, then the search will return only examples of when the MSP said those exact words. You can further refine this search by adding a date range or selecting a particular committee or Meeting of the Parliament.
It’s also possible to run basic Boolean searches. For example:
There are two ways of searching by date.
You can either use the Start date and End date options to run a search across a particular date range. For example, you may know that a particular subject was discussed at some point in the last few weeks and choose a date range to reflect that.
Alternatively, you can use one of the pre-defined date ranges under “Select a time period”. These are:
If you search by an individual session, the list of 成人快手 and committees will automatically update to show only the 成人快手 and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of 成人快手 and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of 成人快手 and committees will update to show the information that was current at that time.
All Official Reports of meetings in the Debating Chamber of the Scottish Parliament.
All Official Reports of public meetings of committees.
Displaying 333 contributions
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 22 April 2025
Meghan Gallacher
I appreciate the explanation, but, having asked two questions, I still do not know how many buildings will be subject to Government-led remediation.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 22 April 2025
Meghan Gallacher
Before I ask questions regarding assessors and the open call, I will go back to the pilot entries for the cladding remediation programme. As we know, there are 107 entries as part of that pilot. In the past, I have attempted to tease out an answer from the Government on when the works will be completed on the five properties and the pilot entries. Will the minister give an update on when those works will be completed and, indeed, when the works on the other 102 properties will be completed? We need to start moving forward. You are right in your assessment that things have been too slow, but if we are going to progress at speed, we need to know when the pilot programme will be completed.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 22 April 2025
Meghan Gallacher
Okay. We know that the open call will be extended until June. I must admit that I was hoping for more information on the time frames, the scope and the numbers. I have not received that from the minister this morning. It would be really helpful if he could provide that information to the committee at the earliest opportunity because I think that that is what people need at this point, which is eight years down the road from when Grenfell happened.
I want to know about the assessed capacity of developers to undertake remediation work while still meeting new building targets. We are, of course, in a housing emergency, and it is appropriate for us to look at the need to build more homes鈥攐n which I am sure that we are all in agreement鈥攁nd to make sure that developers are carrying out important remediation work at the same time.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 22 April 2025
Meghan Gallacher
I appreciate the detail, because I think it important that we tease it out. I have a follow-up question. There are 107 properties in the pilot programme. Given that the programme was launched in 2021, why do we still not know, four years later, which of the properties are subject to Scottish Government-led remediation and which are not?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 27 March 2025
Meghan Gallacher
Amendment 1010 seeks to insert into the Housing (Scotland) Act 1987, alongside new sections 36A to 36D, a new section to ensure that a person who identifies as homeless has the right to request a review of the various stages of support that they receive, if they feel let down or if they have not been recognised as homeless. It relates to comments made by other members this morning about tightening the definition of the ask and act duty to ensure that all the relevant bodies that will undertake those particular duties know exactly what is expected of them and that everyone can receive the level of service that they believe that they should receive, should they present in such a way.
That is where my concerns lie with this particular section of the bill. The minister has lodged amendments that the Conservatives are supportive of, but I think that there is further work to be done on the bill as it stands, particularly to ensure that public bodies have the confidence to ask and act and that, as Jeremy Balfour rightly pointed out, no legal challenges can happen on the back of the legislation. We all need to be incredibly mindful of that in relation to the ask and act duty. I believe that the right of review should be contained in the bill. After all, if someone wants to request a review to see what level of service they should receive and to benchmark that against the service that they did receive, what will happen through that process鈥攁nd, indeed, what will happen to them should they follow that route鈥攈as to be made clear in the bill.
I believe that the bill needs to be tightened. I am happy to work with the minister and my colleague Alexander Stewart on amendment 1010, but, again, with regard to the ask and act duty, I think that Jeremy Balfour hit the nail on the head when he talked about how the bill鈥檚 weaknesses have been laid bare at this morning鈥檚 committee meeting.
09:30Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 27 March 2025
Meghan Gallacher
Are you willing to work directly with my colleague Alexander Stewart on amendment 1010? You said that your amendment 1040 stretches to local authorities, but, if we want the ask and act duty to work efficiently, that will surely have to be extended to other public bodies, too.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 27 March 2025
Meghan Gallacher
Amendment 1010 seeks to insert into the Housing (Scotland) Act 1987, alongside new sections 36A to 36D, a new section to ensure that a person who identifies as homeless has the right to request a review of the various stages of support that they receive, if they feel let down or if they have not been recognised as homeless. It relates to comments made by other members this morning about tightening the definition of the ask and act duty to ensure that all the relevant bodies that will undertake those particular duties know exactly what is expected of them and that everyone can receive the level of service that they believe that they should receive, should they present in such a way.
That is where my concerns lie with this particular section of the bill. The minister has lodged amendments that the Conservatives are supportive of, but I think that there is further work to be done on the bill as it stands, particularly to ensure that public bodies have the confidence to ask and act and that, as Jeremy Balfour rightly pointed out, no legal challenges can happen on the back of the legislation. We all need to be incredibly mindful of that in relation to the ask and act duty. I believe that the right of review should be contained in the bill. After all, if someone wants to request a review to see what level of service they should receive and to benchmark that against the service that they did receive, what will happen through that process鈥攁nd, indeed, what will happen to them should they follow that route鈥攈as to be made clear in the bill.
I believe that the bill needs to be tightened. I am happy to work with the minister and my colleague Alexander Stewart on amendment 1010, but, again, with regard to the ask and act duty, I think that Jeremy Balfour hit the nail on the head when he talked about how the bill鈥檚 weaknesses have been laid bare at this morning鈥檚 committee meeting.
09:30Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 25 March 2025
Meghan Gallacher
That is a really important point, particularly, as you say, to ensure that the valuation matches the remedial work that has been done, as well as to ensure that it does not fall behind just because of what has happened across the board in some areas up and down the country. Gary Brady, do you have a costing associated with the remediation work that you have undertaken?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 25 March 2025
Meghan Gallacher
That is really helpful鈥攖hank you.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 25 March 2025
Meghan Gallacher
Good morning. The witnesses have given a brief overview of what the RAAC situation looks like in their area, but, as we know, RAAC remediation comes at a cost. Have you done an overall costing for how much it will cost your area, how it will be paid for and what role the Scottish Government should play in supporting social landlords and councils that are dealing with RAAC issues? It is a really big question鈥擨 do not know who wants to take it. Perhaps Jackie Timmons will start.